Method 5, Extra Credit

Whenever I write and add photos to my art blog at home, Blogger tracks the amount uploaded and has a posted limit. I have noticed some artists using Flickr to upload photos instead of Blogger’s Picasa and wondered how to do that. Also, what happens when you reach Blogger’s photo limit? Do you stop uploading photos all together? Or create a new blog when you run out of space? Or must you limit the number of pictures or upload directly to Flickr? Or switch to a blog provider that allows unlimited space?

Exploring Picasa for extra credit on Method 5, I created an account for my art blog and was dumbfounded--seeing duplicates, even triplicates, of photos previously uploaded. Remembering many frustrating weekends when Blogger would lose both my post and photos, I would begin the process all over again. Is that why Picasa had extra copies? Because Blogger lost them but Picasa didn’t? Why couldn’t one of them have alerted me about those duplicates? Or tell me I could retrieve them through Picasa? No wonder I seemed to be running up my photo size limit in Blogger. Not only that, but when I changed my mind and deleted some photos from my blog, there they were--still in Picasa.

Guess this means that once you upload something, it is really out there—cloud computing!—and will continue to be out there until you personally delete it. Since Picasa saved them each time, I conclude only Blogger lost them. This is a big lesson.

The coolest thing about Method 5 exercise was posting to my library blog from Flickr! I had never tried that before. All you need to do is just set up the link in Flickr, compose and edit your post in Word, go to any of your individual photos in Flickr, click on “blog” above the photo, copy and paste from Word in the Flickr space it delivers up, and—zip!—the blog post appears! The only downside was not being able to add blog tags or do further editing.

Personally, I am not impressed with my first view of Picasa. But, I learned some very interesting things, including how to save time on the weekends.

Method # 3

Reading about computing in the clouds, I think that storing your files where you can access them anywhere is a radical shift—instead of software strictly on your hard drive computer, you can put your documents, spread sheets, and video out into space, in a cloud.

If my library were to adopt this in the future, there might not be any need to buy expensive software for each machine. Staff would be trained to learn the new cloud concepts and storage. But, would software companies go out of business or shift from producing expensive software to cloud-based space and software? Would computer techies now become savvy about retrieving your floating documents?

The whole concept keeps moving technology to the point where it’s untethered.

Untethered. That word has reverberated in my skull since I’ve begun this program. Like an astronaut taking a space walk, but without his umbilical cord, floating along, hopefully with powerful space jets to get him back to the safety of ship.

If you are over 40, you've had to constantly deal with change and upgrades. Just look at computer storage devices: 8” floppy, 3.5 floppy, Zip drive, USB, and now large-capacity external hard drives. You realize kids today are not tethered like we were. Instead of having to use a home telephone at the exact spot where it was hardwired (before the portable clips and wires were invented, allowing you to unplug and re-plug in a different room), they have always known about cell phones. Instead of having to use a record player or stereo plugged into a wall, they can carry tunes in their MP3, iPod, or Blackberry, or iPhone. Instead of having to use either a portable or electric typewriter, they can type on laptops or text on phones. Instead of needing an expensive and heavy Betamax machine with large blank tapes to either record programs off the air from a handful of commercial channels or buy pre-recorded movies, they can see digital commercial shows as well as tons of amateur videos (YouTube) on their choice of portable device or online computer.

A pattern emerges when new technology is developed: the latest device is unveiled and hailed, it is very expensive, people rush to buy it, the price drops, more can afford it, it becomes commonplace and is absorbed into the culture, and it becomes obsolete. Then the pattern repeats.

Today, we live in a science-fiction world. Untethered. Portable. All-in-one device. Freeing up where and when you can do certain activities. Untethering allows you to take your phone, e-mail, music, videos, GPS maps, etc. with you when you travel across town or around the world. Incredible!

Some of the articles and comments about cloud computing point out the risks of putting valuable documents out there in space. Along with teaching new software and storage methods, a library needs to balance instructions with warnings about cloud computing. Like any new technology, the positive and negatives will emerge as it becomes used or discarded.

So, will this become a viable alternative to commercial software tethered to one or a network of computers? Will it become safe and stable? It seems there are more questions than answers at this point. Only time will tell.